At Clinica Campesina Family Health,  medical providers understand the role of social support in pregnancy. They have found a way to take that understanding, adopt a model program and expand their ability to care for the ever-growing numbers of women who need quality care. Clinica Campesina is a community health center known nationally for its innovations in redesigning the delivery of primary care. It has provided quality, affordable health care to low-income, uninsured people for the past three decades. Among its four clinics, its service area reaches from Boulder and Louisville in Boulder County to Thornton in Adams County, though its patients come from all over the metropolitan area for prenatal care including Littleton, Englewood and Arvada. Ninety-six percent of its patients are living below 200% of the federal poverty level and 54% are completely uninsured.                                                

    Providers at ClinicaCampesina say they are seeing a dramatic rise in the number of pregnant women who need care.

In 2007, the Caring for Colorado Foundation helped with $150,000 to fund the expansion and renovation of Clinica's Pecos Street location in Adams County. The grant allows for more providers and more patient visits in the clinic as a whole and expanded the capacity of the Centering Pregnancy and Centering Parenting Programs. On this day, a group of women meet, seated in a circle, just as they have throughout their pregnancies. Today, they are celebrating their babies' first birthdays, and their children are at the clinic for their 1-year, well-child visits. While each child is weighed and checked, mothers, grandmothers, fathers, and aunts exchange gifts, share stories of parenthood and tales of children growing up. There are songs, birthday cake and even games for the children.

Looking to provide high-quality care to a larger number of women, providers set out to incorporate Centering Pregnancy and Parenting methods into all of its clinics. The Centering programs focus on the pregnant woman. Up to 12 women with similar due dates are grouped for their prenatal care. Once a month, they spend 90 minutes with clinical staff learning about self-care, parenting skills and how to be more involved in their own medical care. Centering Pregnancy groups allow Clinica providers to care for an additional 320 pregnant women each year without reducing the number of appointments needed by nonpregnant patients. The program also helps the women in Centering groups to feel less isolated and gives them the information they need to have healthier pregnancies and be better, more informed parents. The emphasis is redirected to social support, patient empowerment, personal connections, cultural appropriateness and common-sense education. Clinica places special emphasis on pregnant women and infants because the early investment in the health and wellbeing of a pregnant woman pays off in the form of a full-term, healthier, weight-appropriate baby. Financially, it makes sense to help a woman have a healthy pregnancy because that care comes at a fraction of the cost of caring for a low-birth weight, premature infant in a neonatal intensive care unit. In 2007, Clinica Campesina delivered 1,626 babies. Only 5.6% of the babies were low birth weight; that is lower than the national average of 7.6%. Ninety-two percent of the newborns made it back for a newborn visit, and 91% of the mothers received a post partum visit. Women at the clinic pay a maximum of $50 for their prenatal care. "Finances," say the staff at Clinica, "will not be a barrier to quality care."